This isn't a job I've done before. Not for olive trees. I've removed a few dead and/or dying fruit trees in the time we've been here, but this is the first time I've removed olive trees.

These have all either died from the Lacebug infestation we had two years ago, or are dying. Although I didn't really expect them to recover enough to ever be usable as a harvestable tree, what I wasn't expecting was the rapid die-off of limbs. Even more of a surprise was the rapid colonization of the dead limbs with an orange fungus.

Dead after Lacebug infestation

Some of them produced dead limbs quickly with some resprouting on other limbs. But there's been almost no further growth on those limbs, and continued die-back. Some trees have heavily sprouted shoots from the base. But I don't think these will ever be harvestable...a tree-shaker would simply snap them off. That in itself isn't necessarily the end of the world, in that most of the trees that have suffered badly are the few table olive/non-frantoio trees we have. Table olives have to be hand-picked, not harvested by a tree-shaker, so they probably would never face a tree-shaker anyway.

But that orange fungus.....! The fungus sprouts out from the dead wood. Some branches, when you cut them off, show a thread of the fungus snaking through the core of the branch, like an artery.

Rather than let of become another, different problem I've started removing the affected trees. There was talk of pulling them out of the ground, but I've opted to burn them out. If I burn them I don't need to get anyone in with heavy machinery. Its a lot slower, but its only my time.

So far I've found twenty trees that need this work. Most of them are in two rows, near to each other, which was the epicentre of the Lacebug infestation.

Of course, as soon as I decided on this course of action its started raining, and burning out a green tree stump in the rain isn't an efficient job. So far I've got four burnt down to ground level, and another four started. Once we get to ground level I need a hot fire just centered on the stump and try to keep burning down. I'm using tree prunings as the fuel...I have an endless supply of that, sitting in a burn pile waiting for the rain to stop. But with the ongoing wet weather I will invest in some basic bbq heat beads to keep the location of the burn hot and very specific.

So, what to do with the open space created? If I replant olives I can't really place them on the same spot and the removed trees, that would be asking for ongoing trouble. But its a very neat grid layout, ideal for harvesting, so to plant new trees out of alignment with the grid seems unreasonable. My belief, not backed by anyone else, is that Lacebug avoid apple trees, so a few apple trees in the space might be helpful to create a segmenting barrier in future. Even if we don't need more apple trees, my cows will appreciate it.